Shrinking ‘Tree-cover’ impaired urban environment and brought down the quality of life manifold. This study is investigating ‘Tree-cover’ change and its influence on the city’s environment and proposing Tree-cover planning methodology for low carbon cities.

Abstract

Neighborhoods are conceived as a planned area primarily for residential use. It is supported by basic requirements of community facilities and some common spaces. In the initial stages of the plan, to start with, Neighborhoods of urban areas contains reasonable inter dwelling spaces with greenery, wider roads and streets with avenue trees on both sides and community areas. In due course, the Neighborhoods undergo pressure of development and finally the trees and green space are replaced by buildings. Creditably, ‘Trees’ by its nature has the ability to absorb most of the air pollution emit by people. Preserving and maintaining adequate tree covers for future development is the need for the moment to address cities current environmental problem; particularly carbon sequestration, and reducing particulate pollutant. In short Planning and management of trees at Neighborhoods in long run would act like lung space for entire urban area. This study investigated the tree cover change in Chennai city and its influence on environment over a period of time. It has been found that at some part of the city the extent of environmental modification was 38% due to green-cover reduction in terms of air quality, hydrological process and microclimate. During the study an attempt has been made to understand various issues that hinder the tree-cover retention, accordingly green-cover plan is proposed using landscape ecological principles.